Relationships August 11, 2016
Everyone knows that women can get breast cancer, so awareness that the disease exists isn’t the issue. There are shirts, 5k runs, hats and bracelets emblazoned with the words “save the ta-tas.” But for a lot of men and women, that’s where their knowledge about breast cancer ends.
In order to change this, breast cancer survivor Paulette Leaphart has been walking topless 500 miles and an added 500 miles fully clothed for the past two months. According to this inspirational woman, her goal is to create awareness of what breast cancer actually entails.
Accompanied by her eight-year-old daughter Madeline, Leaphart made the 1,000-mile trek from Biloxi, Mississippi to Washington D.C. by foot, shirtless the entire journey. After being diagnosed with breast cancer, Leaphart went through a double mastectomy and chemo therapy. In an interview with ESPN-W, Leaphart said, “We need to tell the truth about cancer. They’re using the slogan, ‘Save the ta-tas,’ but the ta-tas aren’t what’s important. It’s the people with the breasts. You can still be alive without your breasts.”
She’s been stopped by police over a dozen times, but before she ever set out, Leaphart did her research. Public indecency laws aren’t applicable now that she doesn’t have breasts or nipples—which is what happens after having a double mastectomy, unless plastic surgery is involved. According to the American Cancer Society, a mastectomy is when “the entire breast is removed, including all of the breast tissue and sometimes other nearby tissues.” Police were trying to enforce a law that they didn’t even understand. Just in case, Leaphart taught her daughter how to work Facebook Live.
Leaphart was originally filmed by a documentary crew, but after they left, she and her daughter no longer had a consistent safe place to sleep for the night. Even though she no longer had the publicity, she kept going, walking around 30 miles each day. “I trained for this. When I got sick, I had to sell my cars,” Leaphart recounted in the ESPN-W interview. “That made me walk to the doctor. I’d walk the 5 miles there, recover for an hour or two, then walk the 5 miles back.” Cancer treatment has also destroyed Leaphart’s teeth. Most of them are chipped or completely broken, and it would cost over $10,000 dollars to fix.
Leaphart set out on this journey to tell lawmakers in D.C. about the day-to-day struggles of those who cannot afford treatment. And she’s definitely succeeded in creating the publicity. Over 20,000 people followed Leaphart’s journey on Facebook.
She has been given food and shelter by the kindness of strangers and random supporters driving to help. Still, it was a long, exhausting road, but Leaphart finally made it to Washington this past June and won her meeting with a few lawmakers. But winning is easy—governing is harder.
Who knows what kind of change Leaphart might enact in D.C.
